


The Problem with Faeries

by ElvenSemi



Category: Original Work
Genre: Curses, Fae & Fairies, I've got a fever and the only prescription is more faeries, Multi, Urban Fantasy, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 12:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14213592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvenSemi/pseuds/ElvenSemi
Summary: The problem with faeries is that we love them. We know all the sharp and cruel ways they twist us apart and we love them with a helpless, hopeless foolishness that never fades until it destroys us.Bree has been living in Valesport for a while. Frankly, as a cursed human, it's one of the safer places for her. Safe from other humans, anyway. Everything else the world has to offer? Not so much. She's already had her run-ins with werewolves and vampires and whatever the hell Jean Cernunnos is... so, in retrospect, she was probably due to get into trouble with the Fae.





	The Problem with Faeries

**Author's Note:**

> The three (3) fans of my original work requested I put them up on Ao3 more often, so here you go. Have some faeries, to be updated periodically, whenever I have time. Honestly, I've had this on the backburner for a while and I'm glad to finally get somewhere with it. As with the other original work I'll be uploading later this month, this was written with new readers in mind and will hopefully be slightly more accessible to my fans at large.
> 
> Pertinent characters in this chapter are
> 
>   * Bridget Corey aka Bree ([art](https://i.imgur.com/owiS8w8.png), [profile](https://alonimi.net/showthread.php?tid=704&pid=31510#pid31510), [faceclaim](https://i.imgur.com/ScpCyON.png))
>   * Robin Regaine aka that nameless faerie ([faceclaim](https://i.imgur.com/ZomcM0j.jpg), he's too new to have anything else)
> 


The problem with faeries is that we love them. We know all the sharp and cruel ways they twist us apart and we love them with a helpless, hopeless foolishness that never fades until it destroys us. 

Bree was very familiar with the sensation. That was probably why faeries had never scared her. Not the way they should have. 

Valesport was full of people who weren't scared of faeries the way they should have been. They lasted approximately the same amount of time as the people who weren't scared of vampires the way they should have been. Short and cursed and blessed lives full of pain and terror and sweet sweet pleasure. Bree wasn't like that. 

As with all things in Valesport, Bree acted with appropriate caution. Respect that hinged on avoidance, as much as anyone could avoid anything in a city like this. A bit more respect and caution for the faeries, perhaps, because they moved in familiar ways and she'd never seen the devil that had taken up residence in her heart tangle with them just to enjoy what it would do to her. 

That was the only reason she hesitated when she saw a man of stunning beauty towering over a dirty figure huddled in filthy rags of a jacket. The standing figure had that magnetic beauty, the kind that made you want to fall to your knees. The kind you stared at like it was a swaying snake. 

Bree knew a lot about men who were more beautiful than they had any right to be. But Jean didn't pull her eye with the force of unearthly magnetism. She had no one to blame for her loathsome adoration of him but herself. 

That was the only reason she hesitated, because under any other circumstances, a beautiful man in a bespoke suit taunting what was clearly one of the city's many homeless would have spurred her into instantaneous, thoughtless action. 

The dirty man's hands were roughly bandaged, in such a way that it must have been difficult for him to grasp anything at all. Bree watched as if hypnotized as the man in the suit slowly stepped down on one of those bandaged hands, exerting increasing pressure, digging in the heel off his perfect leather loafer until red began to seep into the concrete. 

In the grand scheme of things, Bree didn't hesitate very much at all. 

"Hey," she snapped, storming over to the pair of them. She didn't lay hands on the man, because angry did not have to mean suicidal. "Stop that." 

The man eyed her with mildest surprise, tinged slightly with boredom. He glanced slowly back down the man who still remained hunched on the ground, and then back at her. Something akin to curiosity was forming behind his eyes. Bree didn't like it at all. 

"Why?" he asked simply. 

Bree briefly considered her answer. Pointing out the man was hurt would be useless. Clearly that was the point. Because I said so didn't have much of a ring to it outside a mother's kitchen. 

"Because if you don't," her traitorous mouth explained. "I'll have to make you." 

The man's face split into a horrible grin, horrible because it was so beautifully perfect. Whereas Jean had too many teeth that were all the wrong shape, pointed and terrible, this man smiled like a movie star. "WILL you now." 

"Yes," she replied evenly, with a confidence she did not know how to back up, although plans were rapidly forming in her mind. "So it would be much easier if you just stopped on your own." 

"Oh, but why? When this promises to be so much more interesting. How will you make me, cute, cursed little thing?" 

Irritation flickered in her eyes. She would never grow accustomed to people knowing, no matter how many things could smell it on her. "Tell me," she asked, reaching down her shirt to hook the thin chain Jean's ring was on, pulling it out from her shirt to dangle in front of her. "Does this mean anything to you?" 

The faerie eyed the ring with a detached bemusement. "Your owner is not here to hold your leash, nor, I think, would he choose to defend a creature yapping so loudly at its betters." 

One sure fire way to piss Bree off was dog puns. It worked like nothing else ever would. 

"Oh, he wouldn't need to," she said, eyes blazing with a dangerous sort of cold fury. "I just wanted to be sure you'd know who to send your thanks to for the necklace." 

"Do you intend to bribe me with it, puppy? I assure you, I have thrown away grander." 

"Oh, not this one. This one's mine," she explained blithely, letting it drop back into her shirt. "I meant this one." 

\--

When Bree had first run into a fae, and not simply been able to walk away, she'd turned to Jean for protection. It's what she always did, she felt. She was a dog, and he was her only trick. She traded some delectable humiliation for a shopping trip, and had him take her to a place where she could buy protections. Or, more accurately, he could buy them for her. 

The store had been a delight and she'd gone there on her own a few times since, but that first time, she'd had Jean. So she had followed her instincts and bought the most expensive thing in the store. 

\--

She pulled the solid iron collar out of her bag in one smooth motion. It was huge and thick and heavy, broad enough to go around necks thicker than the average human, but not so much that it could be pulled off over a head. A single ring at the front promised chains, should she get it around a neck. Not that she'd ever had to. One look at it and the fae who'd been bothering her vanished, never to be seen pestering her again. 

The horror-struck way the fae in front of her recoiled promised similar results. She wondered if he could see the binding on the inside, if he knew how much it would burn. 

"Jean buys me a lot of necklaces, so... Even though I like this one a lot, I'll let you try it on," she offered. The faerie took a physical step backwards, and she took one forwards, relishing in the ability to put herself between the fae and the man he'd been tormenting. She had precious little power in the world, and there was something absolutely delicious about having it over something that should have been in all ways superior. 

"Do you often make enemies for the sake of strangers?" the fae asks, eyes flickering behind you to the hunched figure of the bleeding homeless man. "Or is it simply the instinct of one stray dog to protect another?" 

"If I'm a dog, my good neighbor, what will that make you once I've collared you?" Bree asked, voice sickly sweet. 

"You wouldn't dare," the fae says, voice more uncertain than he'd probably like. "No matter what you play at, you don't have the power your master does, and he won't protect you from trouble you brought on yourself." 

"I have exactly as much power as I'm willing to take," Bree said, eyes narrowing. "And I assure you I'd love little more than to get you all collared and sweet on your knees for my 'master.' I've always wondered how he'd treat a pet's pet." 

This was a bluff. Jean would not appreciate her dragging anyone to him in chains, not in the slightest. But few enough knew that about him that the lie worked. 

"You'll regret this," the man promised. 

"My regrets are many, and you will be the least of them." 

And then he was gone. Bree blinked, glancing up and down along the street. She was unaccustomed to things simply vanishing on her. But he did seem to be gone. 

She turned to the only one left, then, the man in rags who'd somehow drawn the faerie's ire. She squatted down in front of him. "You really shouldn't hang around near Brighton. Didn't the houses give it away? This isn't--" 

She reached forward, slightly, and the man recoiled backwards, bandaged hands up as if to ward her away. She could see his face now, bearded and dirty and rough... with eyes so beautiful they almost hurt. She paled slightly, realizing her mistake at once. 

"Hey, sorry, I'm not gonna hurt you," she said, holding up her hands. "I'm helping." 

"Don't touch me with that thing," the man hissed, pointing at the iron collar still gripped in her hand. "It hurts just to look at." 

"Right, shit, sorry," Bree stammered, pausing to shove it back in her bag. "I didn't know you were... That is, I thought you were..." 

"Mortal, like you?" the man suggested. "Would you have stepped in, had you realized it was a squabble between pixies?" His voice was lilting, and strangely accented. 

Bree thought that maybe she could listen to him talk for a very long time. She'd need to keep an eye on that. 

"Yes," she said, a little annoyed to be asked. 

"Why?" the man asked, and she was already tired of being asked that. 

"Because I'm obnoxious, rude, and incapable of minding my own business. Give me your hand." 

"I will not," the man said, sounding indignant. 

Bree rolled her eyes. "Not to keep. Let me fix it." She pulled a little first aid kit out of her bag, kept on hand for inevitable injuries she got when free running around the city. 

"I assure you, it is far beyond your means to fix." 

"You're pissy because I'm helping you," Bree observed. "But if you don't let me rebandage your hand, I'm going to say please, and then where will you be?" 

Immediately, the man offered his hand to her, and Bree smiled a little smugly. "There, was that so hard?" 

"You were right. You are obnoxious." 

“You’re in good company, thinking that,” Bree said blithely as she carefully began unbandaging his hands. The bandages were dirty and soaked with blood. She winced as she unwound them, trying to pull carefully even though the man made no real show of being in pain. “Fuck, what happened to you…? You don’t need to answer that,” she added quickly. 

“Afraid I’ll pay off my debt with knowledge you don’t need?” 

Bree rolled her eyes. “Look, I know it won’t help, but I’m not expecting you to repay me. This neosporin is given of my own free will and not… shit, how did it go?” 

“You are right; it does not help.” 

Bree shrugged. “I tried. I don’t need your favor. Faerie favors are more trouble than they’re worth.” 

“Then why are you here? Why not leave, once you learned my nature?” 

“Because you’re bleeding,” Bree said, shifting a bit in discomfort as they edged along the side of one of the many things she disliked about herself. “I don’t like it. So, if you think about it, I’m actually doing this out of selfishness, not for a favor.” 

To her surprise, the faerie laughed. “Oh, is that so?” 

“Yes,” she said firmly. She finally peeled off the last layer of bandage. All she could see was black and red. “How old were those bandages?” she asked, her stomach churning at the stench of old blood. “I can’t… Ugh, hold on.” She dug around in her bag again, this time pulling out a water bottle. She unscrewed the top and then began carefully pouring it over his hand, trying to rinse away as much of the old blood as she could, rubbing her thumb as gently as she could over his hand to help. The water ran red and red and red and red, but she could see his hand a bit better. 

Bree drew in a sharp hiss of a breath. His hand was covered in brutal, thick red cuts. All over his hand, some of them so deep she could swear she could see the white of bone. Her stomach churned again, threatening to unleash her lunch onto the sidewalk to follow bloody water down the gutter. 

“Whoever did this to you is sick,” she said, instead of any useless inquiries as to how it had happened. “Is it really okay to leave it like this? All I have are bandages and stuff…” 

“They will not heal, no matter what you have,” the faerie said with a shrug. 

“They?” she asked, her eyes falling on his other hand, also covered in dirty bandages. “Fuck. Both of them?” 

“Yes,” he replied simply. Bree shook her head. 

“That’s fucked. Well, I can at least bandage them better than you managed on your own.” And small wonder, trying to bandage one’s own hands when they were already so injured… She pulled a roll of gauze out of her first aid kit and got to work. 

Bandaging both his hands took every bit of gauze she had in her first aid kit, and she still wished she could have done more. She covered the gauze with a thin layer of self-adhering bandages, some of which she cut into thinner strips for his fingers. She was hoping to still give him some flexibility, though how much he could stand to move his fingers with his hand cut like that, she didn’t know. She was focused, biting her lip in concentration and working in silence as she squatted next to him on the ground. Finally, she pinned the last bit of bandage in place and rolled back with a sigh. 

“There. Christ.” She let out a long breath. Her back was sore and her legs were cramping from squatting for so long. She glanced up, and frowned at the position of the sun in the sky. She hadn’t realized how long she’d been working for. She must have been at it for like half an hour at least. She was going to have to run home, very quickly. Or maybe she could swing by Jean’s and take a risk on him being there and wanting to let her in… 

The man looked as his hands and flexed one. She let out a startled, pained noise at the motion. “You probably shouldn’t!” she began, but didn’t quite know how to finish. He knew his body better than she did. 

“This is much better than before,” he announced, sounding almost grudgingly admiring. “I will repay you.” 

“Please don’t,” she said, without thinking, and he glared up at her. She held her hands up in surrender. “Right, making it worse,” she said with a sigh. Don’t say please, don’t say thank you. But be polite, which always seemed like a contradiction to her. Not that it mattered. She was never polite. 

“I will give you a gift,” he decided, and Bree took a physical step backwards, hands up. 

“No way. I’m already cursed, don’t even think about it.” 

The faerie let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Come to this place, three days hence. Before sunset.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his coat. It probably hadn’t been there earlier. 

“I can’t be out after sunset,” she replied, not taking it. 

“In three days, you can.” 

Her eyebrows raised, and she took the paper from him curiously. She unfolded it, frowning. It was a… map? A hand-drawn map? Who even still used these? 

“I have no idea where…” She glanced up. She was standing alone in the street. “This… is. ...Fuck.”


End file.
